The Person as a Gift

Opening remarks by conference moderator, Christopher Tollefsen, Ph.D., University of South Carolina

Award-winning student essay, “Disconnected Libido and Limitless Hedonism: The State of Sex on the Modern Campus” by Justin R. Hawkins, Georgetown 2011

“The Person as a Gift” by Anthony Esolen, Ph.D., Providence College

The evil of the sexual revolution not only springs from a false anthropology. It also reinforces that false anthropology, and in so doing it curtails the very opportunity students have to acquire sincere wisdom. In other words, the sexual chaos of our day not only makes it practically more difficult for students to learn, given the trouble it brings to their lives. It is also epistemologically reductive. It severs the truth from love. It is of a piece with the wisdom-thwarting reductions of our time — with the belief, for instance, that beauty is “only” a physical reaction, or that there is no substantive content to goodness. Saddest of all, students are prevented from learning anything profound about the mysterious beings among whom they live and move — beings of their own kind, yet so strangely different. In this session, Dr. Esolen describes how, as a result, men know little about women, and women know little about men.